Pool C in 2016

[smedindy]

RHIT may have died by the missed XP, but they beat Franklin thanks to a missed XP as well.

[ITH radio]

Husson could end up going to play a 10-0 WNEC as we've seen the Comm pair the NEFC/ECFC champs in prior years. Eagles also could go to SLU if they won the LL (or even if they didn't, SLU could get in as one of two east region 9-1 potential Pool C's).

[Toby Taff]

If Hendrix gets the SAA AQ and goes to UMHB, who does HSU play? 

Could be anybody.  If there's an odd team out somewhere, the committee can get creative with it.  Husson is another outlier who can make their quadrant of the bracket unbalanced in the opposite way that you see with the Texas/West Coast sub-bracket.  Could shoot Husson to Texas and maintain balance.  But it doesn't have to be Husson.  Any odd team out from anywhere could get on a plane.  I think my main point was that if there HAS to be two flights and one is going to be SCIAC/NWC, then you can have Hendrix play at UMHB and literally anybody else play at HSU.  There may not have to be two flights.

For selfish reasons I'd rather see Hendrix play HSU. The Hendrix OC is a former HSU QB from Abilene. That would be a homecoming hero vs the hometown schiool scenario. Plays well in the paper. Of course you also have the  OC of hendrix taking on his college nemesis angle if its hendrix vs UMHB

[jknezek]

If Hendrix gets the SAA AQ and goes to UMHB, who does HSU play? 

Could be anybody.  If there's an odd team out somewhere, the committee can get creative with it.  Husson is another outlier who can make their quadrant of the bracket unbalanced in the opposite way that you see with the Texas/West Coast sub-bracket.  Could shoot Husson to Texas and maintain balance.  But it doesn't have to be Husson.  Any odd team out from anywhere could get on a plane.  I think my main point was that if there HAS to be two flights and one is going to be SCIAC/NWC, then you can have Hendrix play at UMHB and literally anybody else play at HSU.  There may not have to be two flights.

For selfish reasons I'd rather see Hendrix play HSU. The Hendrix OC is a former HSU QB from Abilene. That would be a homecoming hero vs the hometown schiool scenario. Plays well in the paper. Of course you also have the  OC of hendrix taking on his college nemesis angle if its hendrix vs UMHB

Not going to happen in round 1. Hendrix is 524 miles from HSU according to the NCAA calculator. That's a flight. They just fit in under UMHB or Huntingdon, but HSU is a no go.

[art76]

If Hendrix gets the SAA AQ and goes to UMHB, who does HSU play? 

Could be anybody.  If there's an odd team out somewhere, the committee can get creative with it.  Husson is another outlier who can make their quadrant of the bracket unbalanced in the opposite way that you see with the Texas/West Coast sub-bracket.  Could shoot Husson to Texas and maintain balance.  But it doesn't have to be Husson.  Any odd team out from anywhere could get on a plane.  I think my main point was that if there HAS to be two flights and one is going to be SCIAC/NWC, then you can have Hendrix play at UMHB and literally anybody else play at HSU.  There may not have to be two flights.

For selfish reasons I'd rather see Hendrix play HSU. The Hendrix OC is a former HSU QB from Abilene. That would be a homecoming hero vs the hometown schiool scenario. Plays well in the paper. Of course you also have the  OC of hendrix taking on his college nemesis angle if its hendrix vs UMHB

Not going to happen in round 1. Hendrix is 524 miles from HSU according to the NCAA calculator. That's a flight. They just fit in under UMHB or Huntingdon, but HSU is a no go.

You got a link for that calculator?

[jknezek]

If Hendrix gets the SAA AQ and goes to UMHB, who does HSU play? 

Could be anybody.  If there's an odd team out somewhere, the committee can get creative with it.  Husson is another outlier who can make their quadrant of the bracket unbalanced in the opposite way that you see with the Texas/West Coast sub-bracket.  Could shoot Husson to Texas and maintain balance.  But it doesn't have to be Husson.  Any odd team out from anywhere could get on a plane.  I think my main point was that if there HAS to be two flights and one is going to be SCIAC/NWC, then you can have Hendrix play at UMHB and literally anybody else play at HSU.  There may not have to be two flights.

For selfish reasons I'd rather see Hendrix play HSU. The Hendrix OC is a former HSU QB from Abilene. That would be a homecoming hero vs the hometown schiool scenario. Plays well in the paper. Of course you also have the  OC of hendrix taking on his college nemesis angle if its hendrix vs UMHB

Not going to happen in round 1. Hendrix is 524 miles from HSU according to the NCAA calculator. That's a flight. They just fit in under UMHB or Huntingdon, but HSU is a no go.

You got a link for that calculator?

google is your friend.   https://web1.ncaa.org/TES/exec/miles

[wally_wabash]

First go at this for 2016.  Much will change in the next three weeks, but why not set the table?  As far as I can tell, the bid break down is the same as last year:
25 Pool A - Automatic qualifiers for conference champions
1 Pool B - Eligible teams are those that do not play in Pool A-qualifying conferences (ASC, SCAC, Independents)
6 Pool C - Everybody who didn't get one of the first 26 bids from Pools A or B are eligible

Pool A
Here are Pool As as things sit currently:


Yes, there are some ties happening in a handful of these leagues and I had to guess a little bit.  I've tried to err on the side of "most likely", but certainly some of these bids will change hands over the next couple of weeks.  Also, do note that nobody has clinched a Pool A bid as of yet.  That might start happening this weekend. 

With the Pool A's off the board, the process is as follows:
- Take the highest remaining team from each region's regional rankings, and compare those four teams according the NCAA's selection criteria (see the D3football.com FAQ for a primer...will also try to link to a 2016 championship manual to make it all official as soon as I find one)
- Select the "best" team according to the criteria
- Replace the selected team with the next highest ranked team from that particular region
- Repeat the process until all spots are filled

The regional rankings.  This week I'm using our various regional fan polls as surrogate rankings.  I've made a couple of changes where the criteria trump the voters' usually better judgement (the criteria can do counterintuitive things).  I'll note where I've made changes.  The remaining at-large teams in this week's "regional rankings" are:

North: Wheaton, Wittenberg, John Carroll, Wabash, Bluffton
South: UMHB, H-SU, ETBU, Muhlenberg, Berry, CWRU, Huntingdon, Westminster(PA)
East: SJF, Wesley, Albright, Frostburg State, Hobart
West: UW-Oshkosh, St. John's, UW-Platteville, Dubuque, Concordia-Moorhead

I swapped John Carroll and Wabash in the North.  Wabash's SOS is basically a disqualifier at the moment. 
In the South I jumped Berry up over a bunch of teams due to their very high SOS and a RRO win.
In the East, I swapped SJF and Wesley due to superior win percentage and SOS.
The West I think is basically fine, but my hunch is that Dubuque winds up ranked higher than UW-P from that committee.

Pool B
This process is pretty straightforward for Pool B.  Technically there are teams from the North and East eligible here, but those teams (specifically, D3s independents) don't have at-large worthy profiles.  So we'll skip them.  That leaves us with the highest ranked team from the South, which is going be Mary Hardin-Baylor.  For completeness, here is UMHB's profile:
1S Mary Hardin-Baylor - 7-0 W/L record, 3-0 vs. Regionally ranked opponents (RROs), 0.607 SOS (15th)

Not only is this easily the best Pool B profile, it may be the best profile in the field.  Really, really, really good argument to be made that UMHB should host through the semis, iyam. 

Pool C
Six of these bad boys to give away.  Let's do it.  The format here is:
[Ranking and Region] [Team name] - [D3 record], [Record vs. RRO], [SOS (nat'l rank)] 

Round 1:
3N Wheaton - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.604 (16)
2S Hardin-Simmons - 5-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.584 (28)
6E St. John Fisher - 6-1, 1-0 RRO, 0.600 (19)
2W UW-Oshkosh - 5-1, 2-1 RRO, 0.649 (4)

Bit of some sneaky here because UW-O's game against Morthland doesn't pop up in the NCAA's SOS calculus, but nevertheless, they have a top flight SOS, they have multiple RRO wins, and their RRO loss is a squeaker against 1W UWW.  Pretty easy choice here, really. 

Round 2:
3N Wheaton - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.604 (16)
2S Hardin-Simmons - 5-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.584 (28)
6E St. John Fisher - 6-1, 1-0 RRO, 0.600 (19)
5W St. John's - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.497 (128)

This is a tough round because these profiles are so similar.  If you look at "results" vs. ranked opponents, I think it's an interesting conversation to weight H-SU's loss to UMHB against SJF's win against Olivet and which result is better.  I'm giving the very slight edge to SJF here because I like wins against ranked teams just a smidge more than I like losses.  SJF's win comes against a team that is in my projected field.  HSU (or Wheaton or St. John's) has no such wins. 

Round 3:
3N Wheaton - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.604 (16)
2S Hardin-Simmons - 5-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.584 (28)
5E Wesley - 5-2, 1-0 RRO, 0.569 (42)
5W St. John's - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.497 (128)

Wesley is a big name that just sidled up to the table, but they have a pair of non-ranked losses and that's a bad deal against the rest of this board.  So I've got three other runners up, each with a loss to their league champion and no quality wins.  Here's where we can talk about these results vs ranked opponents again- H-SU fared a bit better against the team that I think might be the #1 overall seed than Wheaton did against North Central (North #2) so I'm edging H-SU into the tournament (and probably right back to Belton). 

Round 4:
3N Wheaton - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.604 (16)
5S East Texas Baptist - 5-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.584 (28)
5E Wesley - 5-2, 1-0 RRO, 0.569 (42)
5W St. John's - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.497 (128)

ETBU is a tricky add.  They're either going to lose to HSU and get knocked out of this thing or they're going to win and take HSU's place.  Maybe should have gone with an either/or for that second South at-large team.  We'll play it out.  Wheaton's SOS is a bit too much to ignore four rounds deep.  Wheaton feels pretty safely in, but they'd really benefit from IWU or Carthage sneaking into the rankings.  We'll see how that goes. 

Round 5:
5N Wittenberg - 6-1, 1-1 RRO, 0.604 (17)
5S East Texas Baptist - 5-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.584 (28)
5E Wesley - 5-2, 1-0 RRO, 0.569 (42)
5W St. John's - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.497 (128)

So Wittenberg has arrived and they're basically Wheaton except with a regionally ranked win.  I thought we'd have placed St. John's by now, but we've had a lot of really big SOS numbers and there's not a ton of meat on the Johnnies profile beyond win percentage.  I'm placing Wittenberg based on (through smiling teeth) the strength of the NCAC.  Fear not, power conference aficionados- Witt's SOS is going to bomb hard and fast in the last three weeks and this won't be an easy call in three weeks. 

Round 6:
7N John Carroll - 6-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.435 (200)
5S East Texas Baptist - 5-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.584 (28)
5E Wesley - 5-2, 1-0 RRO, 0.569 (42)
5W St. John's - 7-1, 0-1 RRO, 0.497 (128)

One ticket left.  Not a slam dunk by any means here, but I'm going with St. John's.  They had a better result vs. St. Thomas (one of the top four seeds, almost certainly) than ETBU had with UMHB.  I know the SOS lags a bit for St. John's here, but ballot inertia (which we all hate, I know, but it's a real thing) isn't going to let St. John's sit around for five rounds unselected.  I didn't really talk much about Wesley through these rounds, but that second loss (to an unranked team) is too much to overcome through 8 weeks.  It may not be as some of these other teams take Ls.  This week, though, there's just not room for multiple losses on your profile. 

Alright, that's what I've got this week.  It'll be fun to see how this changes over the next couple of weeks as we untangle some of the bunching that's happening in the South and East regions. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Wally, nice analysis (as usual).  I suspect that Wheaton will eventually be 1-1 against RROs.  IWU will be favored in all remaining games, and if they make it to 8-2 I'm confident they will be ranked (low, but ranked).

[Scots13]

It took me a few days, but I finally finished a mileage chart and mapped out possible 1st round South Region games using Wally's chart given the Texas sub-bracket and the 500 mile threshold for bussing. Granted, some games might be inter-regional so this is theoretical in-region games. Only the ASC has possible conference rematches on this list.

ASC:
UMHB- Hendrix, HSU, ETBU
HSU- UMHB, ETBU
ETBU- UMHB, HSU, Hendrix (Huntingdon is 502 miles)
Unless Hell freezes, ETBU is out as they have HSU left the play

CC:
JHU- W&L, RMC, CWRU, Westminster
Muhlenberg- W&L, RMC, CWRU, Westminster
F&M- W&L, RMC, CRWU, Westminster

ODAC:
W&L- JHU, Muhlenberg, F&M, Berry, Centre, Maryville, CWRU, TMC, Westminster
RMC-JHU, Muhlenberg, F&M, Maryville, CWRU, Westminster

SAA:
Berry- W&L, Huntingdon, Maryville, TMC
Centre- W&L, Huntingdon, Maryville, CWRU, TMC, Westminster
Hendrix- UMHB, ETBU, Huntingdon
WashU- Maryville, TMC

USAC:
Huntingdon- Berry, Centre, Hendrix
Maryville- W&L, RMC, Berry, Centre, WashU, TMC

PAC:
CWRU- JHU, Muhlenberg, F&M, W&L, RMC, Centre
TMC- W&L, Berry, Centre, WashU, Maryville
Westminster- JHU, Muhlenberg, F&M, W&L, RMC, Centre

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

I know it may not matter after this weekend (go Bluffton), but I'm curious where Franklin would fall in your analysis right now if they were in Pool C.
5-1 vs D3, 2-0 RRO (if Bluffton is ranked) and .541 SoS (which will go down with Anderson and Hanover to come) I think would get them ranked ahead of John Carroll and get to the table for the last round but would the committee go 3 straight from the North and pick them over St John's?

[wally_wabash]

I know it may not matter after this weekend (go Bluffton), but I'm curious where Franklin would fall in your analysis right now if they were in Pool C.
5-1 vs D3, 2-0 RRO (if Bluffton is ranked) and .541 SoS (which will go down with Anderson and Hanover to come) I think would get them ranked ahead of John Carroll and get to the table for the last round but would the committee go 3 straight from the North and pick them over St John's?

I'm curious to see what the North committee does with John Carroll.  In our NRFP, we've kind of collectively decided to place JCU behind the NCAC quagmire which has kind of surprised me, tbh, but it isn't unreasonable to see the Streaks nestled up behind Wheaton.  Then you'd have to see how they do with Mount Union to see if they can lose close enough to stay there.  Interesting season for JCU...waxed by Oshkosh in Week 1, (probably) waxed by Mount Union in Week 11 and then absolutely nothing inbetween. 

I could see a scenario where Franklin ends up ranked higher than JCU.  Would I then see them going in ahead of St. John's?  Doubtful, particularly if St. John's has been collecting votes for while.  Franklin would have the RRO win that St. John's probably won't get, but Franklin also has a loss to an unranked team which St. John's does not.  And if it's super close and we dip into the secondary criteria, Franklin's result with Butler is not a helper. 

Good note on SOS as well.  As I went through this, it really felt like there are a lot of elevated SOSs right now.  I think we're going to see the SOS figures come down and bunch up a little more as we finish up the schedule.  SOS will still help us differentiate teams, but maybe not quite as much as they did for me tonight. 

[Ralph Turner]

Thanks for the accolades to the South Region Fan Poll, but if I were sitting on the Regional Ranking Committee, I would rank the teams this way.

1) UMHB  ASC Pool B
2) JHU  Centennial Pool A
3) CWRU Pres AC Pool C (Regional record 10-0 and possibly wins over ranked Westminster or WashU StL as possible SAA Pool A, if they get some help.)
4) Thomas More Pres AC Pool A
5) HSU  ASC Pool B/C

Also-rans in no particular order... Hendrix, Huntingdon and W&L, the Final Pool A's.

The Committee criteria for me are different from my South Region Fan Poll ballot.

[wally_wabash]

Thanks for the accolades to the South Region Fan Poll, but if I were sitting on the Regional Ranking Committee, I would rank the teams this way.

1) UMHB  ASC Pool B
2) JHU  Centennial Pool A
3) CWRU Pres AC Pool C (Regional record 10-0 and possibly wins over ranked Westminster or WashU StL as possible SAA Pool A, if they get some help.)
4) Thomas More Pres AC Pool A
5) HSU  ASC Pool B/C

CWRU didn't get close in my projection tonight, which introduces the "could we really leave out an undefeated team" conversation.  The answer is, no, we couldn't do that.  If CWRU gets through these last three weeks with wins, the SOS that is killing them right now will come up (that's actually going to happen whether they win or not), and they've got opportunity to score one or two RRO wins.  I'm not projecting CWRU in this week, but the Spartans are in full control of their postseason chances. 

I suspect that a road win at WUStl this weekend launches them way, way up the South rankings that we'll see on Wednesday.  Maybe ahead of H-SU in the at-large line, maybe not.  But 10-0 CWRU is playing in the tournament.  No question. 

[HansenRatings]

So wally, when you do these projected brackets mid-season, do you usually do it without projecting team's future records? I'm asking because you had SJFU as your second Pool C team, but they're going to probably have two losses if they're not Pool A, which would obviously affect their odds.

I'm currently trying to assign probabilities for teams to get in based on regressions of prior performances (specific to Pool C, Pool A is pretty straight-forward), so hopefully I'll have something meaningful to add by the end of the week.

[wally_wabash]

So wally, when you do these projected brackets mid-season, do you usually do it without projecting team's future records? I'm asking because you had SJFU as your second Pool C team, but they're going to probably have two losses if they're not Pool A, which would obviously affect their odds.

I'm currently trying to assign probabilities for teams to get in based on regressions of prior performances (specific to Pool C, Pool A is pretty straight-forward), so hopefully I'll have something meaningful to add by the end of the week.

If you can mathematically model the selection committee's choices you should get a Nobel.   

I think of these mid-season projections as more of a "if the season ended today" kind of snapshot.  When I started doing this a few years ago, mostly I was just curious to see how the at-large picture evolves over the last month or so of the season.  I don't try to project future results too much, except in cases where two teams (generally from the same conference) are kind of hitched together but will play one another at a later date.  I think I've had this happen with the MIAC a couple of times, particularly when Bethel was a serious player there along with STT, STJ, and C-M.  Even trying to get the current "snapshot", it doesn't make sense to have four teams from the same league in play because that's just not a thing that's going to happen.  I could/should have done this with HSU/ETBU this week, which would have bumped Muhlenberg up onto the table (the Mules would not have been selected in any case). 

You're right about SJF.  9-1 SJF would be a conference champion.  8-2 SJF...well, 8-2 SJF teams have actually had good luck in these situations, so maybe that's not a terrible spot for the Cardinals after all.